Fred H. Smith

Sexual differences in European Neanderthal crania with special reference to the Krapina remains

Abstract Problems relating to the identification of sex in Neanderthal specimens are discussed. Three morphological features—morphology of the mastoid process and surrounding area, form of the supraorbital torus at glabella and the superciliary region, and the rugosity of the nuchal plane—were selected as most indicative of sex in Neanderthal crania based on observations from the Krapina collection and on those European specimens with pelvicly determined sex. Thirteen Neanderthal crania (eight males, five females) are sexed on the basis of these criteria, and the pattern and degree of sexual dimorphism determined for this sample is compared to those exhibited by other samples of more recent European hominids. It is concluded that the degree of sexual dimorphism in Neanderthal crania, as defined by this study, is consistent with that observed in the other fossil samples and that Neanderthals exhibit slightly more cranial sexual dimorphism than more recent Europeans. Models for explaining this are discussed as is the difference in pattern of change and degree of sexual dimorphism between the cranium and postcranium during later prehistoric hominid evolution in Europe.

The Origins of Modern Humans: Biology Reconsidered

Contributors ix Introduction: Thoughts on Modern Human Origins: From 1984 to 2012 xi Fred H. Smith and James C. M. Ahern 1 Africa: The Cradle of Modern People 1 Osbjorn M. Pearson 2 Crossroads of the Old World: Late Hominin Evolution in Western Asia 45 Robert G. Franciscus and Trenton W. Holliday 3 A River Runs through It: Modern Human Origins in East Asia 89 Karen R. Rosenberg and Xinzhi Wu 4 Perspectives on the Origins of Modern Australians 123 Arthur C. Durband and Michael C. Westaway 5 Modern Human Origins in Central Europe 151 James C. M. Ahern, Ivor Jankoviae, Jean-Luc Voisin, and Fred H. Smith 6 The Makers of the Early Upper Paleolithic in Western Eurasia 223 Jean-Jacques Hublin 7 Neandertal Craniofacial Growth and Development and Its Relevance for Modern Human Origins 253 Frank L Engle Williams 8 Energetics and the Origin of Modern Humans 285 Andrew W. Froehle, Todd R. Yokley, and Steven E. Churchill 9 Understanding Human Cranial Variation in Light of Modern Human Origins 321 John H. Relethford 10 The Relevance of Archaic Genomes to Modern Human Origins 339 John Hawks and Zach Throckmorton 11 The Process of Modern Human Origins: The Evolutionary and Demographic Changes Giving Rise to Modern Humans 355 Rachel Caspari and Milford H. Wolpoff 12 The Paleobiology of Modern Human Emergence 393 Erik Trinkaus Index 435 The color plate section can be found between pages 242 and 243.

The Importance of Croatian Pleistocene Hominin Finds in the Study of Human Evolution

In this chapter, we discuss Croatian sites that have yielded human skeletal remains from the Pleistocene. These include the well-known Neandertal localities Husnjakovo (at Krapina) and Vindija cave, as well as the Late Upper Paleolithic hominin fossil site Sandalja II cave in Istria. The Krapina site played an important role in the historical development of paleoanthropology and is still the Neandertal site with the largest known minimum number of skeletal individuals to date. Finds from Vindija cave belong to one of the latest Neandertal groups in Europe and provide data for the study of both their behavioral, as well as biological characteristics (including genomics studies). The Sandalja II cave in Istria is the only site in Croatia with direct association of human skeletal finds and the late Paleolithic, an Epigravettian industry, providing us with data on the anatomy and behavior of the Late Paleolithic inhabitants of this region.

Recent Research on the Croatian Middle/Upper Paleolithic Interface in the Context of Central and Southeast Europe

This chapter presents some new data on, and interpretations of the Croatian Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic. Alternative interpretations of the Middle/Upper Paleolithic interface in Vindija cave (situated in the Zagorje region of northwestern Croatia) are reported, together with preliminary results of research on the early Upper Paleolithic site of Bukovac pecina (situated in the region of Gorski kotar), and the late Dalmatian Middle Paleolithic sites of Mujina pecina, Velika pecina in Klicevica and Kastel Stafilic—Resnik. The archaeological assemblage (Mousterian industry) and the results of chronometric dating make the sequences of these Dalmatian sites contemporary with late Neandertals and with the earliest known anatomically modern human groups in Europe. This recent research greatly contributes to our understanding of the distribution of Neandertals and the complexity of the Middle/Upper Paleolithic interface.

On some aspects of Neandertal zygomatic morphology

Neandertals are characterized by a series of well-documented facial characteristics, including midfacial prognathism, large nasal and orbital areas, and a marked supraorbital torus. We provide a comparative morphometric study of another part of this facial complex, the frontal process of the zygomatic. We find that European Neandertals have a distinctly columnar form of the frontal process not found in recent modern humans and most Pleistocene modern humans. Some purportedly modern specimens and specimens pre-dating Neandertals exhibit the same pattern as European Neandertals, while others exhibit the modern human pattern. The columnar form is likely a retention of the ancestral state in Neandertals and the other late Pleistocene specimens that exhibit it, but variation in the pattern seen in early modern humans reveals possible insights into late Pleistocene human evolution.

Cranial measures and ancient DNA both show greater similarity of Neandertals to recent modern Eurasians than to recent modern sub-Saharan Africans

OBJECTIVESnAncient DNA analysis has shown that present-day humans of Eurasian ancestry are more similar to Neandertals than are present-day humans of sub-Saharan African ancestry, reflecting interbreeding after modern humans first left Africa. We use craniometric data to test the hypothesis that the crania of recent modern humans show the same pattern.nnnMATERIALS AND METHODSnWe computed Mahalanobis squared distances between a published Neandertal centroid based on 37 craniometric traits and each of 2,413 recent modern humans from the Howells global data set (Nu2009=u2009373 sub-Saharan Africans, Nu2009=u20092,040 individuals of Eurasian descent).nnnRESULTSnThe average distance to the Neandertal centroid is significantly lower for Eurasian crania than for sub-Saharan African crania as expected from the findings of ancient DNA (pu2009<u20090.001). This result holds when examining distances for separate geographic regions of humans of Eurasian descent (Europeans, Asians, Australasians, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders). Most of these results are also seen when examining distances partitioning size and shape variation.nnnDISCUSSIONnOur results show that the genetic difference in Neandertal ancestry seen in the DNA of present-day sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians is also found in patterns of recent modern human craniometric variation.

New research on the Late Pleistocene in the Lim Channel, Istria

As a part of the multidisciplinary project entitled ‘Archaeological Investigations into the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene of the Lim Channel, Istria’, archaeological research has been conducted at four sites: Romualds Cave, Abri Kontija 002, Pećina at Rovinjsko Selo and Lim 001 (Figure 1). There is much debate on issues related to biological and behavioural continuity, to patterns of changes and adaptations during this crucial period, and to external factors (e.g. changes in ecology and climate). For example, a clearer insight is needed into how climatic change affects the ecology of specific regions, including changing sea levels. Additionally, there continues to be debate centring on who produced the earliest (Initial) Upper Palaeolithic industries in Europe. To achieve a more precise insight into long-term diachronic changes and cultural relations around the Adriatic, and to document the presence of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic humans in Istria, we concentrated on a single microregion (the Lim Channel in Istria, Croatia). Here we report work on the two sites that to date have yielded Pleistocene material: Romualds Cave and Abri Kontija 002.